Happy Holidays!

Wintertime. The sparkling diamond dust snow, the lavender and rose sunrises, the scent of woodsmoke on the night air, underneath the expanse of the Milky Way. When people ask (as they often do) how Winter got her name, these are the things I tell them. Winter is in many ways the most lovely time of year.

But it can also be kind of a beast. For instance, the non-stop illness from just before Thanksgiving right on through New Year's. At least, that seems to be what we are going for! First a cold. Then sinus infections. Then a stomach bug that hit us in a staggered wave from mid-week to Christmas. And Winter's last teeth are erupting to boot. All of which mean no sleep, for weeks. Eh, well. The doctor assures us every year gets better, as our collective immune system shores itself up against the onslaught. I hope so. The holidays totally snuck up on us this year- it is hard to muster Christmas spirit when bent over a toilet bowl. Here's to a healthier 2010!

Despite that, it was a nice holiday. Winter understands the essential notion of presents and the fun of opening them, but has no expectations about what she will or won't get...it is all a wonderful surprise. There must be a little bit of a sweet spot for that kind of thing, that probably only lasts a year or two, and we really enjoyed her excitement. All the critters got a little something special in their kibble bowls.

Chuck is working on painting a portion of the offices at the King Farm. It is amazing how much of a difference a coat of paint (OK, several coats!) makes; it is going to look very nice. Winter enjoys careening through the emptied room, too, but she is a little too eager to help paint. She is in a period of very rapid mental development- there is something new for mama and daddy to catch up to pretty much every day. Today she wandered into the kitchen while I was in the living room. I heard some rustling in the cabinet, which is typical- she likes to play with the cans and dry goods. However, a minute later she returned to the living room, Oreo in hand. She had helped herself to the cookies, on a shelf I did not know she could reach, using dexterity I did not know she had. Not to mention a level of determined self-reliance...the cookies had been prohibited earlier, and she knew it. She got to keep the contraband, but I guess I will be rearranging the pantry!

Technical difficulties prevent holiday photos being posted (promise, I am working on it), but this is a cute one of her in the John Deere dress, from early November...before the illnesses hit! We wish everyone a wonderful winter, and many happy returns for 2010.

Fall

Fall is definitely here, and shifting fast into winter. Chuck has been doing a lot of raking, with help from his apprentice. I shut the hive down for the winter, which involves administering some natural pest control, wrapping it in plastic, ventilating it, keeping mice out, and lots of finger crossing and prayer that they make it through. In the summer, the hive is literally buzzing with activity, and it was very strange to peer down into the hive and see them all in there, still and silent. Not to mention being able to work the hive with no protective gear at all. It made me feel the winter wind in a way nothing else has; not even the geese that pass overhead or the deep frosty fields.

The goat boys all sprouted their winter coats, which makes them look like little puffballs. We got four new goats, all retired adult ladies. They are a mix of pygmy, dwarf nigerian, and boer. They are pretty typical goats, with the exception of one. Her name when she arrived was Sparkles, but that fits her so poorly in so many ways it quickly morphed to Sprinkles, and then Sprinks, which does suit. She is the Goat Who Walks Alone, and All Things are Food to Her. She was pregnant earlier this year, miscarried when she got butted in the stomach, and then had a massive infection that very nearly killed her. She is unique. Despite goats' reputation, they do not eat everything, and all of ours particularly do not like people food. Winter and I were at the barn one day. Winter was munching a cracker, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Sprinks amble by and suck the cracker right out of Winter's hand. Winter gets furious when Jezebel steals food from her (which happens often), but she was so shocked to have a goat do this that she just stared, open mouthed and empty handed. A couple of days later, Sprinks managed to snag a donut, and since then we have been frisked for edibles whenever we approach her. She is the goat that would eat a plastic bag chased by a tin can. She is also always alone. This is very odd behavior for a goat. She just doesn't seem to care about the fact that she is a herd animal. She also has this bizarre, deep "blaaaht" of a cry, in a whiskey and cigarette voice. The rest of the goats all say "maaaah!" in a chorus of cute, but not Sprinks. The rest of the goats all fear Jez, but Sprinks just butts her as hard as possible, then goes on about her grass munching. She is our favorite goat after the boys. One of the other goats also chases cars, which I found out the hard way when I had to retrieve four goats from the cemetery at the base of the hill. Fortunately, Chuck's portable electric fencing is working really well.

Round up of other news: The new baby is a girl. Going by the ultrasound, she is healthy, slightly less active than her big sister, and still due on March 10. The pregnancy is going well, except that the combined weight of toting one in utero and one in my arms all the time is killing my back. That and heartburn.

I got a new job, which I will transition to over the course of November. I will still be at Dartmouth, but will be within the Medical School, working with grant budgets for two research groups. I think I will be very happy there.

Winter has been working on her words...she can now say dog, ball, baby, banana, bubble, uh-oh, and hi. She also has words for things that she uses repeatedly, but I am not sure what she is saying. For example, she has her own word for the cats, but we can't really discern what the word is...at the pace she is going, we will know before too long.

World's Fair

The weekend started with Chuck's birthday. Winter thought that was pretty much as good as her own birthday was, a couple months back- there was cake, and presents, and it matters not that they were not really actually for her- she had just as much fun anyway.

This week we have had a work crew of early 20-somethings from the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps camping at the farm while completing some projects in the area. They have done a great job and it has been fun having them around. They have worked really hard all week, so before we send them off, we wanted to feed them a big, hot breakfast. The menu was pancakes, bacon, sausage, and eggs. Breakfast for young, hardworking metabolisms means quantity. It also means planning. We made the pancakes on Friday night, after Chuck's birthday celebration. Lots of them. Breakfast Saturday was a success.

Next on the agenda was the Tunbridge World's Fair. It sounds really grand, doesn't it? It is one of the larger fairs in the area, and is about 1/10th the size I remember the North Carolina State Fair as. But all the elements are there- animals, rides, and greasy food. They also have a cool antique village, which included a great display of antique bikes, and even a velocipede. That was my favorite part of the fair. Chuck's favorite part was the Poultry House, which had exotic chickens galore, and little bantams too big for their britches. It was hard to tell Winter's favorite part- it was probably a llama we saw. It was definitely not the cows. This photo pretty much sums up how she feels about cows.
We also saw some amazing spinners spinning fiber from the angora goats that were on display. We got to visit Comet's mom and full sister, too. And Chuck got to ride the bumper cars. It was pretty fun, but it was also way crowded and we will skip the next few years- until we either have kids begging to go, or kids showing goats. One of the highlights was the novice class of the goat show. It consisted of total, utter chaos- children being dragged across the show ring by their goats, goats being coerced to walk with feed that was promptly stolen by a neighboring goat, goats butting each other, goats tearing off towards the barns, and the endlessly patient judge trying to organize them into some semblance of order. She ended up eliminating two categories of judging and awarded prizes based on staying upright and arriving properly attired (in a white shirt). Our goats' breeder's daughter won the class, and deservedly so!

Winter Walks and The Water Fountain

It has been a little hectic, so just a quick video post this week. Winter started walking a few days ago (still wobbly, but rapidly improving) and also learned to use the water fountain (after some trial and error).

Newfound Lake

This weekend we took Winter to Newfound Lake in New Hampshire. It is a very clear, pretty lake with a sandy bottom. There is a lot of beach front development, but the State wisely bought up a long strip for a state park, with a beach and trails. Chuck spent time in the area as a kid, so it was fun to bring our own child. She has not been to a lake before, at least not like this, and she had a pretty good time. She swam, dug in the sand, hiked, climbed, looked at ducks, ate ice cream and french fries, and patted the waves. The only negative in her view was the very thick coating of sunscreen mean old mommy made her wear. We also went to Sculptured Rocks, a glaciated mini-canyon where intrepid youth dive from the edge into the shockingly cold water that runs through it. Winter watched with rapt attention, hopefully not getting any ideas. After all the fun, she fell asleep in the car on the way home in 4 minutes and 30 seconds.

Click slideshow to view larger.

The Wagon Ride

Winter would be happy if this went on for hours and hours and hours, but lame mama and dada usually tire out first.

Overheard

I stopped at our local gas station the other morning on the way to work. One of the cashiers has worked there for quite some time now. He appears to be in his 80s, thin and bearded, with notably long, long fingernails. Time dawdles at its own pace when he is on shift. When I entered the store, I noticed he had physically cornered the other cashier, a young woman of probably 19, with long dyed red hair. He was animatedly telling her a story of some sort, it seemed. She was unsmiling, and her eyes were shifting around almost frantically, desperate to be released from his attention. She was looking for something, anything, any excuse to flee. I wondered what could possibly be so awful that he was telling her. I stepped up to the counter with my items, and he turned to check me out. As he did so I could hear the last trailing line of his tale...

"And I haven't had stuffed peppers since!"

I knew better than to ask, but I would have loved to have heard the start of THAT story.

Winning the War on Water

Pretty much the first thing we did when we moved to the King Farm was begin to Wage the War on Water (Chuck is the four-star general in this effort; I am just a lowly private, but I do know how to run the sump pumps). During the first storms, we noticed water ran in little trickles right into the basement, straight through the foundation. This was no good. The first effort to abate the water situation involved digging up the entire back yard, with hopes of redirecting drainage away from the building. It would have worked, if not for mindbending incompetence on the part of the contractors, who blew up pipes and rammed the house with heavy machinery, so that now during storms the water poured in through the walls, instead of trickling, and also ran right down the bulkhead stairs. During a storm, we once pumped 8,800 gallons of water out of the basement. Many, MANY efforts later, the situation is vastly improved. One of the last remaining weak areas is around our porch- a car parking area was created sometime in the last 50 years- two layers of nice flat rock. Big rocks. Which Chuck has spent the last week moving and removing. We will have better drainage in the area, as well as an attractive treadstone walkway that will be easier to remove snow from in the winter. And hopefully, the porch will stop rotting. Winter thinks this is all pretty awesome, especially the big holes and dirt piles. She also thinks that pointing her finger and saying "dah?" is awesome, and that blueberries and wagon rides are, too.

The bee hive situation remains...enigmatic. A few weeks ago, I was quite certain the end of the hive was imminent. When I opened it up, there were some honeycombs, but no "brood", or bee larvae. That typically means there is no queen in the hive, and it is was too late in the season for me to get a new queen. I checked on it again this weekend. The first thing I noticed as I approached the hive was the scent of fresh beeswax. If there is a better smell in the world, I don't know what it is. They are indeed busy, filling combs with honey. There seemed like there were more bees than last time. The bees were coming and going from the front of the hive non-stop. They were building comb. Everything looked pretty good. And I could still find no evidence of a queen, or any brood. I will go in again in a month...stay tuned, for these are the Days of our Hives (sorry! but it really is soap-opera like, or even Shakespearean, what with all the intrigue!)

Happy Birthday, Winter!

Winter turned one on July 3. She got a few presents, played with them, ate pizza, and ate cake. That was quite a day, even for a big one-year-old, so then she took a nap. I hope all her birthdays are as happy.

Prodigal Chicken Returns

A few weeks ago, almost a month, in fact, we lost a chicken. We keep them penned because of the fox, but a couple of the cleverer ones manage to escape. We had seen her milling around the yard, scratching and pecking. And then- she vanished. I thought Chuck had gotten her back in the coop, but he hadn't, and at the nightly chicken count we counted 11 chickens, not the 12 we had. Our girl was gone. We got flashlights and circled the farm, searching barns, fields, and hedgerows. We were loathe to give up, but we finally had to- there was no sign of her. We assumed a fox or hawk had grabbed her so swiftly that she had not left behind the tell-tale poof of feathers that signals an attack.

Weeks passed. During those weeks, we had two more very bold fox attacks (no chickens killed either time, though!). Those attacks are just the ones we know about...we know this fox routinely cases the farm. Not to mention the many other predators haunting the woods and fields.

I went up to the coop Tuesday morning to look in on the chicks, who are now in a holding pen to get them used to life in the big house. As I approached the coop, a barred rock was loitering in the old sheep barn. I was surprised a hen had escaped, because I knew Chuck had left the coop locked down, which makes escape nearly impossible. Figuring she must have slipped out the coop door after him while he changed their water, I called to her "come on, chicky chicky chicky" and easily got her back in the coop. When she got inside she immediately headed for the feeder and proceeded to eat like she had not eaten for...oh, three or four weeks. It then dawned on me that her tail feathers looked pretty ratty, and I did not recall any chickens with ratty tailfeathers. It also occurred to me that she was leg banded, and our other leg banded barred rock was already pecking in the corner of the coop. I counted chickens. Twelve. Twelve chickens, not eleven. The barred in the barn was the prodigal chicken, returned.

I think I did an actual double take. It felt almost like I was looking at a ghost, or a resurrection chicken. I would have bet you $100 that the missing chicken was gone, eaten, and I am not a betting person. A chicken to survive alone in the fields, in an area with known fox, coyote, hawk, raccoon, skunk, and owls? For ALMOST A MONTH? Impossible. But the proof was still greedily gobbling food.

We think she must have gone broody; she knew where some eggs were stashed and sat on them until she was satisfied. The timing is exactly right. It is unlikely any chicks hatched because the eggs were probably too old- she certainly did not return with any. My admiration for this mothering instinct knows no bounds, but a foolish mission it was for a chicken in the wild!

After a little bit of ruffled feathers as she settled things with Manny and the head hens, it is as though she never left. If only she could talk; the tales she must have.

Babies

Spring is baby season. The other day as I rounded the corner on a walk, I came right on to a mama deer and her brand new baby. She alerted to me, but the baby was so focused on nursing it did not even know I was there, and they stayed put, so I got a good look. The fawn was covered in newborn spots, had impossibly spindly legs and tiny hooves, and enormous ears. I backed slowly away and cut across in another direction, feeling fortunate to have seen them. There are baby red squirrels darting across the driveway, and turkey hens herding gangly chicks through the fields. The barn swallows are diving at our heads whenever we go near the barns, in their seasonal frenzy of familial protection.

We have four baby chicks in the basement. They looked like this when they were five days old. They are now three and a half weeks old, and look almost like tiny chickens; they are mostly feathered out, but still have downy heads. The rate of growth on chicks is astounding. They are visibly larger at the end of the day than they were in the morning. They got most of their feathers over the course of three days. When they are about six weeks old they will move out of the basement, and will go into a pen in the coop. These are Americaunas, which will lay eggs with sky blue shells when they get bigger.

The goats are doing very well. They visited Winter's daycare a couple of weeks ago and got their photos in the local newspaper. They loved the visit, and the human kids loved the goats.

Winter visited the Montshire museum recently. The Montshire is a medium-sized science and nature museum. Chuck and I used to teach science classes to kids there, and probably will again, but I had not been there for a while. I knew there was a water park area, but I expected that Winter would just want to maybe paddle her feet in the water. I did not even pack a towel or change of clothes, not figuring I would need them. Winter took one look at the water area, and I knew immediately. She wanted that water. I turned around and headed back up to the gift shop to purchase the required swim diaper. I coated her in a gallon of sunscreen, and turned her loose. She played, and played, and played. And played. She played in the water for well over an hour, and would have stayed for much longer, but I knew she was so wet that a second coating of sunscreen was futile. She passed out in the car on the way home and slept the sleep of the happy summer child.

She also had ice cream for the first time recently. I think she has decided it is going to be a great summer.

Winter

early evening light

sunlight dapples a sweet smile

little girl in white

GOATS!

The goats arrived. They are about 10 weeks old. They are cute. Their ears are green in the video because they just had their ID tattoos done in their ears...it will fade. They were anxious the first day, but are already adjusting very well and feeling mighty exploratory.

In other news, the fox visited again. It tried to score a hen about 20 feet from me, as I was sitting in a car in the driveway. Chuck was actually inside the coop at the time, hammering. The whole place went into an uproar, and the fox escaped empty-mouthed. The hen is fine...Chuck found her hiding on the front steps of the farmhouse. The rooster is missing some feathers, but is also hopefully fine (we are not sure what happened- it was just out of view). We do not like this fox, and consider this latest attempt entirely too bold. But our statistics are definitely improving.

We went to a bluegrass pickin' party today...Winter loves music and had a grand old time.

Also, I gave the bees a jar of sugar water feed and they stung the @*&$ out of me.

Happy Mother's Day

A new mother's first mother's day...a bouquet of flowers, a stack of pancakes on an elegant tray in bed, and a clean house she need not life a finger for...or, alternatively, a new rooster, a giant box of bees, and gardening dirt on every surface. Winter and I know how to do it right!

Chuck is away on business for a couple of days, so Winter and I are holding the fort. We gardened yesterday in our raised beds and at the community garden, with the help of some friends. Winter loves digging her hands in dirt. Loves it.

Then we went to pick up a box of bees that had arrived from Connecticut earlier in the day. A package of bees weighs about three pounds and contains about 10,000 bees. Yes, 10,000. Since the weather was turning bad, we put the package in the basement, where I sprayed them with delicious sugar syrup and they buzzed in irritated thanks.

The next day we went to pick up Manny. Manny needed a new home because he was sharing a coop with another (giant) rooster and only eight ladies, which is about the minimum for one rooster. There was a little tension, and quite a few missing feathers, but the family that owned Manny really wanted him to have a new home instead of being soup. He is about 18 months old. We are not sure what breed he is, but I am trying to find out. He is a very handsome rooster, and hens are all atwitter (not that it takes much to set hens atwitter). He settled in pretty much immediately.

In the afternoon, our neighbor came over to help me install the bee package into the hive. This involves setting up the hive, opening the bee package, removing the Queen and her attendants in their cage and placing them in the hive, and then placing the rest of the bees in the hive. Note that "placing" bees sounds much calmer than it actually is. There is lots of spraying, shaking, thumping, and dumping. When our neighbor arrived, she asked her if I was nervous. I said yes, a little, and she said "good. you should be."

I suited up and placed the bees as best I could. They seemed to be finding their way when I checked in on them later this evening, and were guzzling their bee feed, which is 1:1 sugar water. The most disturbing part is that when you are suited up in a bee suit, bees directly outside the face veil are so close that your vision kind of records them as maybe actually being inside the veil. Some deep breaths and carefully controlled thoughts help with that.

The Queen's exit to the hive from her cage is blocked with a marshmallow- by the time it is eaten through, her scent has mingled with the hive and they accept her as their queen rather than an enemy bee. That only takes one marshmallow, so next Winter and I made rice krispy treats.

All in all, a pretty good mother's day. Happy mother's day to all the mothers we know!

King Farm in Spring

Today, at least for the morning, was one of the most beautiful days I have ever seen. Video doesn't remotely capture it*, but I tried anyway...and this is proof for the skeptics who think it is always cold and snowing up here. At the end of the day, we had a tremendous thunderstorm, so dense I could barely see the driveway from the windows of the house. But oh, what a glorious morning.

*I was taking a tired Winter on a stroll for a nap, and she was crying throughout the video. I dubbed in birdsong, and the end result is entirely realistic and far more pleasant to listen to.

Places to Go, Things to Do

Normally, I shower and get dressed and ready in our bathroom with Winter happily playing on the bathmat with her assortment of toys, or, even better to her...my toiletry bag and all its mysterious treasures inside. I peek at her every few minutes and talk to her, and it is easy and cozy. Today, instead of sitting and playing and singing to herself, she looked up at me, then scooted over to the bathroom door, opened it, and headed down the hall.

I think our hands just got a lot fuller.

RIP, Brave Rooster

With great sadness, I must report the death of Rooster. He came to the farm as part of our anti-fox measures, and he did his job. Roosters were put on earth to do two things (aside from scratching for feed)- make more chickens, and protect the hens. He protected every single one of his ladies, with the ultimate sacrifice. The very same fox, the original culprit, came back while we were out on a walk...as we came up the driveway, Chuck saw a flash of red. We knew right away that it was probably too late for someone. As Jezebel and Chuck raced after the fox, I took Winter inside to her crib and started the search. Last time, when the fox got five hens in about 45 minutes, there were puffs of feathers everywhere, strewn across the yard and some of the fields. This time, I only saw one drift of feathers, fluttering in the evening breeze. It was Rooster. The fox had dropped him as it ran. I will spare you the details, but I waited with him as he breathed his last, then managed to stroke his beautiful feathers for the first and last time. I am deeply sad that he was with us for a short time only, as he was a really wonderful rooster. He died the death of a hero...if he were human, his story would have been a blockbuster Mel Gibson movie, complete with slow motion montage and adagio in the background. But he was just one chicken, on one small farm, on one beautiful spring evening.

Every single chicken keeper who keeps chickens in an agricultural setting (instead of factory farming) has a fox story. Or, usually several stories. Along with dog, hawk, and coyote stories. The predators are doing what is in their nature, and chickens are pretty easy prey. You can't really blame them. But when your chickens get hit, you don't exactly feel warm and fuzzy, or terribly forgiving. We had already made quite a few changes, but fox truly are masters of cunning, and exploit every weakness, no matter how small. We will redouble our efforts, pay Jezebel in rawhide bones for her diligence up at the coop(she also performed well, coming within a few bounds of the fox), and learn to work as hard as we can to balance the cycle of life and death towards life. Rooster helped us make one more step in that direction.

The Birds and the Bees

In response to a recent fox hit, we got a new rooster. He arrived early one morning, popped out of his carrier blinking, and proceeded to introduce himself to the ladies. So far, he is a really stellar rooster- very handsome, very alert and watchful, not at all aggressive to us or other humans, and he has run off both Jezebel and the cats from his flock. We even enjoy his crow quite a bit...it makes the place seem very...farm-ey. The hens knew it the second he showed up, and proceeded to gossip all about it to each other, and still have plenty to say. It was clearly the biggest chicken happening of recent note (fox excluded). They steal treats right from his beak, and managed to pluck a few of his neck feathers- now we really know what henpecked means- but he is boss.

I am currently scrambling to get a hive in place, because someone found a package of bees for me. I thought I had missed the window for this year (bees are in high demand, and you have to order them very early) but I lucked out. A neighbor is passing on an old hive to me, and being kind enough to show me the ropes. To my surprise, bees may be the most complicated animal we have yet, insofar as learning to manage them well.

Winter and I visited the goats a couple of weekends ago, and they are doing well. Chuck, and our friends Heather, and Mike, have done an excellent job getting things ready, and the goats will be coming home to quite a nice facility. They have a house all their own, a nice secure barn, some fun ramps, and an outdoor enclosure with some sweet wooden fencing. The goats are cute as ever. The one pictured is Orion.

Winter has finally perfected her crawl. Or scoot. Or whatever it is. We have wood or tile flooring all throughout the house, no carpet. I think the floor is uncomfortable on her knees, so she has developed her own little crabby crawl, which gets her where she needs to go without having to use her knees. She is getting pretty efficient at it (more than it seems in the video below- she gets camera shy) , and is enjoying reaching and demolishing cabinets, magazine racks, kitty tails, and anything else that strikes her fancy.

Hello!

Our family's website update is...delayed. When we got our new computer, in the process of cleaning the old one to donate, we deleted this little, innocent looking program file. That file, unfortunately, was the key to our whole, entire website. So we will have to build the site all over again, from scratch. Do you know how much not fun that will be? It will get done, but the weather is nice, the birds are chirping, the farm and our jobs are frantically busy...so it may be a while. In the meantime, I will use this blog for a few updates.